Once there was a family of unicorns living in a rainbow meadow. Right next to the meadow they had a field with carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, peas and other vegetables that all unicorns love to eat to stay healthy. All of them, except the biggest unicorn and the leader of the herd, who liked to call himself Sweethorn. He loved sweets. He liked to sneak into town and be fed candy, chocolate and cookies by the children. If he had to eat vegetables at home, he refused.
But when unicorns eat sweets for too long, they get sick. You can tell that their horn starts to turn brown. And that’s exactly what happened to the big Sweethorn. He looked at himself in the mirror and became very worried about his horn. If it turns brown all over, it might fall apart! And what would a unicorn be without a horn?
Immediately he ran with his problem to an old unicorn who knew all about herbs and was the herd doctor.
“Doctor unicorn! Help me! My horn has turned brown! See? It’s starting to turn brown here at the tip!”
Doc looked at Sweethorn’s horn, shook her head, and spoke: “You see, you see, Sweethorn. That’s what you get from all the sweets. If you keep eating them and avoiding vegetables, your horn will turn brown and fall off.”
“Oh, no!” Sweethorn was horrified. “Have you got any pill or herb to cure it?”
But the Doctorhorn shook her head.
“There is only one cure for that. Stop eating sweets and eat your vegetables.”
“But I don’t like them.”
“In that case, there’s no help for you,” Doc concluded, and left.
Sweethorn couldn’t sleep. In the morning, when the unicorns went to breakfast, he sat down in front of a carrot and looked at it. He ran his eyes over the carrot for a long, long time, as if perhaps it might turn into chocolate. Accepting that the carrot would remain a carrot, Sweethorn sniffed it. Yuck, he thought, and pulled away again. It won’t be so bad after all. He’ll go into town for a snack and then try again, he told himself as he made his way along the stream toward town. On the way he got thirsty. As he leaned over the surface of the water, he saw his horn. It looked even more brown to him than yesterday. So it’s spread?! Oh, that’s terrible!
Sweethorn immediately went back to the meadow. He ran to the carrot and bit into it. And he crunched and crunched until he ate it all. And because he was so hungry, he attacked the broccoli. He finished with a few sweet peas. Suddenly, he thought the vegetables were actually very good! The peas were almost as sweet as candy. Well, not that sweet, but that was the good part. The sweet peas tasted better than anything he had in town. He even slept better that night.
The first thing he did in the morning was run to the stream to look at his horn. It was now beautifully shiny and white again. No sign of brown anywhere.
“You see, I was right,” Doc said when she saw Sweethorn.
“You were. I’m so glad my horn is healthy again. From now on, I’ll only eat vegetables,” promised Sweethorn.
“That’s good. If you munch on the candy now and then, nothing will happen. But you mustn’t eat so much.”
“No,” Sladkoroh shook his head. “I don’t even want to see any more sweets. I may be a fearless protector of the unicorn herd, but I’m very worried about my horn. And I don’t want to be called Sweethorn anymore. I’m going to call myself Carrothorn. Because I ate the carrot first, and it’s shaped like a horn.”
And so, Sweethorn’s horn, actually Carrothorn’s horn, was saved. And you too, dear children, don’t overdo it with the eating of sweets, even though you don’t have a horn that could fall off. But vegetables will make you healthy and strong.
